This post originally ran in Macaroni Kid.

Chances are you’ve shopped at a farmers market and maybe even have a regular one in your neighborhood that you visit every week. In addition to offering access to fresh produce and locally prepared foods, farmers markets are also great opportunities to help kids learn about food and food values.

The Uptown Farmers Market wouldn’t be possible without our awesome sponsors. And we're proud to tell you a little bit more about Becovic. Located in Uptown, Becovic is sponsoring the Uptown Farmers Market because they believe it is a way for the community to gather while sustaining our local makers and growers and supporting our Co-op.

As we continue to celebrate Chicago Market’s exciting funding news, we have another key milestone to share in the development of our store—the first on-site physical work to prepare the inside of our building for construction!

Our lease with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) includes the basement portion of our location at Wilson and Broadway. The Co-op's store design plans call for transforming that lower level into storage space, restrooms, offices, and conference rooms (click here for pdf of the basement plan).

[Photo of a worker wearing an air filtration mask giving a thumbs up sign]

Building a co-op like ours that plans for an exceptional amount of local food means getting to know our farmers!

Hello, cooperators!

In my role as your General Manager, I am working to help build the community vision for a grocery store that delivers amazing products in a manner that elevates human dignity across our supply chain. While we are very committed to local agriculture and small businesses, Chicago Market will also be networked with a global food system. Crops such as coffee, tea, bananas, avocados, spices, vanilla, cacao, and more will be featured in our business (and are clearly important to many of our Owners!). When we engage supply chains further afield, our Purchasing Values demand that, beyond the high-quality standards we prize, we are supporting supply from environmentally and socially responsible sources.

(Hint: Dan's the one rocking the stylish hat!)

Have you stopped by the Uptown Farmers Market this season and picked up a tote bag at the Chicago Market table? If you have, you can thank one of our sponsors - Swedish Hospital! We've been working with Amanda Kritt, their Food Connections Coordinator, to find out a little bit more about a couple programs through Swedish Hospital and how they contribute to Uptown and Chicago.

Chicago Market is excited to announce that we'll be producing the Uptown Farmers Market again this year!

first market day: May 4

every Wednesday 2:30 - 7:00pm
in our parking lot at Wilson & Broadway
uptownfarmersmarket.org

We're excited to be sharing our draft renderings, and one thing that isn't easy to depict in them is Chicago Market's commitment to being, as one Owner wrote, "a place where the whole community can go to access affordable products (and yes, local, sustainable ones - all the goals at once!)."

So we wanted to share some things we have in place already to make food affordable in our store:

We here at Chicago Market are partnering up with other area food co-ops to host a virtual screening of the documentary film The Co-op Wars!

As I got out of my car near 63rd and S. Central Ave, a giant plane flew overhead, and it startled me a little bit. I live on the north side of Chicago, and the O’Hare planes look tiny as they follow their landing pathways. But here in the Clearing neighborhood, I am just a block from Midway Airport, and airplanes sure do take up a lot of sky from this vantage point.